A New Era
by Sonic Sound
Summary: An A.U. of Harrison Bergeron. In which Harrison survives the events at the end of the story. Explores the restoration of a society without handicaps and the difficulties in achieving this.


I see her as she strides in, a shotgun held loosely by her side. I do not know what she plans, but I feel dread. I know that she may be coming for me for rebelling against her perfect world. The moment I see her, I am in motion, the need to get to her position before she can set herself in stance and shoot is intense and pounds in my ears. By the time I do reach her, her legs are spread for balance and she is bringing the shotgun to her shoulder to brace against the recoil. Since I am superior to her rather average physical form, it is quite easy for me to wrestle the gun away from her control. Once it is in my control, all it takes is one point blank shot to end the life of the Handicapper General.

As her body falls lifeless to the ground, blood pooling around her at an incredible pace, I realize that a new era has begun and I am its Herald and Emperor. My Empress, she looks at me with incredulity and some relief as she realizes what could have occurred had I not acted. The others, still inhibited by their handicaps have yet to puzzle out what has just happened. As I observe those that are still handicapped, I realize that they do no have the prodigious talent to overcome the handicaps placed upon them. Eventually the fail and give up on thinking about what has just occurred. The thought occurs to me that this may be a good thing for the time being. Good because it will allow me to decide which actions must be taken into consideration before the human race can move onto a New Dawn.

My Empress, she realizes that our first course of action is to flee and hide. I cannot object just in case the Handicapper General has an organization in place to deal with any obstructions to her vision of equality. However, it is imperative the whatever place my Empress and I hide has access to television. The media is our information source in a world where we are vastly outnumbered. Knowledge is power. Shortly after our arrival in our hideout, a well furnished if Spartan place we turn on the television. The network is still airing the chaos we left behind us. The blood has stopped flowing from the Handicapper General's body and it has begun to take on a rust color as it dries. The orchestra has begun playing again and the dancers are once more performing for the masses. An observer can see the disgust upon my Empress' face at the fact that she was once like them. As the program is shut down I can see two men in heavy combat gear, which is all black, with sleek avian like helmets are retrieving the body of the Diana Glamps. This confirms my suspicions that there is a force that must be overcome before the restoration of humanity is complete.

I have decided the next action we must take is the liberation of those that are the most heavily handicapped. This people will help us lead the New World Order. We have to decide which are easiest to get to and which may be the most beneficial to my rebellion. As all this occurs, we and those we liberate train in military operations in order to overcome this opposing force. Guerilla warfare is the key to our victory. After we gained our sixth member I realized that continuing to free only the people under the most handicaps would prevent us from reaching our goal in any meaningful time. There are two more candidates of this nature to be freed, but afterwards, we must free some of the people that have few handicaps. The seven that I liberated first will be my Generals and any that are freed after shall unfortunately be the bodies that pave the way to a new and better future.

After three months of training and the liberation of approximately 490 people, we are ready to go on our first raid against the Raptors. There is a fair sized warehouse where medical supplies are stored. There is a small armory connected to it. Scouts have spent the last week documenting patrols and drawing up basic maps of the base. Should the raid be successful this will hopefully inspire others to rebel against the regime.

The first raid was a success and a disaster in itself. It was successful because we eventually took control of the structure. Disaster struck because we lost a large number of our force. Each General was selected to lead 70 people into battle, making seven battalions. Each battalion was assigned a specific job, the 6th and 7th were to provide a distraction and hopefully lead the majority of the 1100 strong force into an ambush set up by the 1st and 2nd battalions. However, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th jumped the gun resulting in disaster. These battalions suffered almost total loss. Only a total of ten survived from all three battalions, this luckily counts the Generals as they are far more difficult to replace. Of the other four battalions, 130 people survived. This leaves us with only 140 people to continue our rebellion. More people must be freed before we attempt an operation like this again.

Our success has inspired other smaller groupings to fight back. Most were instantly annihilated but some have met with varying degrees of success. I have sent out messengers proposing an alliance to the more successful groups. The sharing of supplies and people is the goal. Hopefully, they accept and our numbers will swell slightly.

It has been almost a year since our first raid, six months since the other major groups have joined our ranks in alliance. We have refined our strategies, gained more soldiers for the cause, and we have a surplus in supplies. Numerous bases have fallen to our superior strategy, then eventually our superior armament. As each base falls, we creep upon numerical superiority as well. Apparently, research and development was prohibited in the Raptor units. One of the Generals discovered that each is mildly handicapped mentally. This is only to prevent higher ambition; the Handicapper General felt it was best to allow them to adapt to combat situations but not have ambition. We have managed to gain the support of small units of the Raptors increasing our general capabilities. Slowly the infrastructure of the past is crumbling leaving the path clear to a new future.

"We must be our true selves. We must prevent our subjugation. I am the Emperor and I will lead us into a new age."

Harrison Bergeron


End file.
